As theatregoer becomes creator, can the future direction of theatre be steered by audiences?
Interactivity is something of a buzzword in theatre right now. The Barbican's You Me Bum Bum Train received rapturous acclaim last summer, immersive company Punchdrunk recently enjoyed yet another success at the Manchester International Festival, and had you visited the Soho Theatre in April you might even have been invited to trim your pubic hair in Bryony Kimmings' show Sex Idiot – all in the name of theatre. But for those of us less inclined to perform, a new brand of collaborative theatre offers the chance to get stuck in without taking to the stage.
A handful of new productions are recruiting audience members to become an active part of the creative process, and many of them have received a big boost of funding injections. One example is a new project grant launched this year by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which has given away £175,000 – the UK's biggest performance award – to National Theatre Wales to fund the creation of a play with Cardiff's Somali community.
Collaborative theatre is clearly making waves, but there are questions to be asked about what wider implications this has for the way theatre is made. The creative process has traditionally been controlled by a select artistic team, but increasing collaboration means that audiences can begin to take the reins. As the retail motto goes, the customer is always right; perhaps theatre should catch up and start making performance a more consumer-driven experience.
One project steering theatre in this new direction is Biding Time. The brainchild of Pippa Bailey, this provides the basic framework for a new musical and invites audiences to fill in the blanks, contributing to everything from script to costume to set design. “I'm saying, 'here's a story, here's an unfinished script, and if you don't like it, change it,'” Bailey explains.
While taking on board such creative input is a positive development from the perspective of audiences, can this approach ever replace traditional theatre? As democratic as this model may be, it is unlikely that it will supersede conventional methods and it is inevitable that some audience members will always want to remain firmly in their seats. Bailey agrees that the traditional model will always have its place: as she puts it,“for every person who's participating there are ten watching”.
Another benefit of these emerging collaborations is the possibility of sparking change in local communities. Bailey, who is encouraging communities to mount their own adapted productions of Biding Time, hopes that her work will bring a new audience to theatre and speak to people who have limited previous experience of the arts. “Value change, behaviour change, the idea of transformation,” she states firmly: “that's why I got involved in arts and theatre in the first place.”
A similar strategy is being implemented in Glorious, Rajni Shah's ongoing musical theatre project, which uses local volunteers to reinvent a show for every new location that it visits. “It's like planting a seed,” says project director Helena Suarez. “It seems very small but the impact on the individual is really big.” As well as reaching out to local people, the creative team stay in touch with participants after the project has moved on, in the hope of creating a lasting impact within the community.
While these projects undoubtedly make an impression on the individuals taking part, it remains to be seen how impartial audiences will react. One potential pitfall for collaborative work is that it alienates those who have not taken part, a challenge acknowledged by Suarez, who admits that Glorious needs to be made more accessible to audience members who are not familiar with the process behind the production.
It is still early days for collaborative theatre and its lasting impact is yet to be tested. Audience members are unlikely to take the place of artists, but collaborations of the kind that are now emerging promise the tantalising opportunity to both spawn a whole new audience of theatregoers and give a voice to the audience that is already there.
Image: Lucy Cash
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